Sunday Sermon

Watching God

Isaiah 60:4

“Look around you. People are gathering and coming to you. Your sons are coming from far away, and your daughters are coming with them.

Growing up my dad was an excavator and during the summer his three sons helped in his work. We all learned how to use a shovel properly and became very proficient in the use of that tool. Building things takes a degree of precision and so we learned how to keep the hole we were working in on grade. Those days were filled with hard work but it was worth it because we learned things and we helped in the process of building something. To this day there are buildings that I pass by that I can say I had a part in building that place and it is a good feeling. When I think how I feel about being a part of the building process it makes me think of how God feels about creation and what it means to Him. Our God is a God who builds which is such powerful thing. Often we do not spend much time thinking about creating things but the effort and energy that it takes is substantial. Just the little I know about building makes me honor God because of the building He does. We have a God who wants to build things in our lives and He give us the instructions of how to build our lives for free. I love when Jesus talks in the Sermon on the Mount about digging down to build a foundation because I have been a part of that system in my own life both physically and spiritually. God longs to build in us the things that will make our lives a wonder but it does mean we have to let God work and we have to do some of the work ourselves. The God who spoke and the universe came into being is the same God who wants to work in us because we need God to work in us. Sometimes that means that God has to do demolition to things in our lives. Most people think demo work is fun but I have also been part of that and it is dirty nasty work. It is so much more fun to build things then to tear them down but often to get to the place from which to build all the old unstable stuff has to be gotten rid of. God is really good at rehabbing our lives which is helpful because our lives are frequently a mess. A cental idea to our faith is that God is a builder and that we need God to build things in our lives. Holding on to this idea will help us understand what God is doing as we learn to be the people of faith God wants us to be. This idea of God being a builder also works as we spend time in the Bible. When we first encounter things that happen in the Bible it can be hard to know what God is doing but remembering that God is always building will help us know that God is at work. God is an intervening God and that means that God gets involved and one of the ways God gets involved is that God builds stuff. What I like is that what God builds is so great that millennia later we can look at what God did and admire the work He did. This is the God I want in my life and the lives of all who I meet.

Once we get the idea that God is a builder and we want His work in our lives we need to consider sin and what it is all about. Imagine that you have spent time effort and energy to create something of beauty and meaning. It would be natural to love that thing because it is something you made. Now think through what would happen if the thing you made and that you love is wrecked. How angry would we be? What would be our reaction? This is what God faces because of sin. The creation God fashioned with His hands and breathed life into with His breath is destroyed. Not only is it ruined but the creation itself is the one who does the act of demolition. This is not a perfect example but it will do for what we are considering right now. If it was me that this happened to I would be angry beyond measure and God is angry but we need to see what that anger does. Instead of letting His anger to cause Him to wipe everything out and to start again God uses His anger to reach out and to offer to rebuild what has been broken. It is a thing of wonder that even when God is dealing with the sin of Adam and Eve God is planning to fix the problem of sin once and for all. Our faith is built on the idea that God is a builder so He longs to restore what He built not end it. I want us to think about what God is working on in our lives. What are the things that our sin has broken that need to be fix and how can we let God do more work in our lives? We need to take sin seriously enough to know that we are broken but we also have a God who calls to us and invites us to come to Him and find healing. Trust that God is working even when we can not see it because we have a God who is both a builder and a God who gets involved.

The reason I am covering this material this way is because we need to comprehend the depth of God’s involvement in the world. God is essentially at the center of all things and I think we as believers often forget that or do not completely realize where God sits into scope of the universe. Somehow we think we have to call God up and remind Him that this is His creation but that is so far from the truth. It thus helps when we have places we can go to remind us that God is in control. Reading the verse we are considering is one of those places. God has spent most of Isaiah’s life telling the Israelite people about the sin they are doing and that there is judgement on that sin. Finally the reality is happening and God’s judgement is being fulfilled when Israel is being conquered and taken away. All of this is because God is at work. One of the reasons Isaiah’s spend his life time speaking for God is to help people know that what is happening is not God missing in action but because God at work to save them. If God wanted He could just let the Israelite people be destroyed by their sin but God wants to save them from themselves. Now in this verse God is speaking about the future because the Israelites need to know there is a future. This verse speaks to that future and the first words that are said here have an interesting effect. God says to “look around” because God wants people to notice what He is doing even if it is in the future. As people of faith these words should be a part of our very day life because they ask us to look and see what God is doing. Even when we cannot see what God is doing we can see what God has done and we should know God is at work. If nothing else the cross should point us to the fact that God is working even when we cannot see God working. The cross is a terrible place of pain and suffering but God turns it into the greatest statement about who God is. When we look at the cross we are looking at God working both in the past and in the future. People of faith should take those words “look around” as a call from God Himself for us to trust in Him even when everything seems to be a mess. When we are struggling with or faith let us take these words to heart and look around and see that God is at work. Trusting in God is not about God making our lives easy it is believing that God is at work to build a world that is filled with trouble and sin.

Years ago we lived in a house that had bad pluming. When the previous owner had done a addition to the house they had not fix the pluming right. There was no way to make the pluming work except to rip out all the pipes and restore them to the right standard. It took a lot of work and time to restore the system to a real working order but it was worth it. One of the things about God that makes or faith work is the God is righteous which means God always does what is right. That God does what is right means that God wants to restore what is broken in the world. In the second part of our verse we find God telling the Israelites that God will one day restore to them what they are losing because of their sin. The imagery is wonderful because it sets the idea of children gathering together because God has brought them there. We have a God who wants to restore to us the things we have lost because of our sin. God wants to fix what is broken and that is the hope we have in God. Israel does not deserve this because of their sin but we have a God who seeks to build back what we have lost because of our sin and that is part of why we trust in God. At the center of our faith is a God who builds not destroys and we need to tell the world that there is a God who restores our souls that we have sold so cheaply. This verse also tells us what is important to God. Nothing else counts to God but people. God does not care about our stuff because stuff does not last. What God restores to us first is a relationship with Him and then He restores relationships with people. It is so important that we know what is critical to God and then we watch as God works and builds all around us. This verse tells us so much about the God who we trust in but the question is do we believe that God really does build and if so then what is God building and restoring in each of us. God wants us to build a foundation that is all about Him and who He is because when we do that our faith will build a world that is a Godly world.

Believers in the living God trust the name of Jesus not because He came and gave His life but we trust in the God who would do that kind of thing. Faith is not about what God does but who God is and that is why we need to know about the nature of God. To trust in God no matter what is going on we have to know who God is and that is what this verse gives us. God invites us to look around because when we do we will see that God is a builder. We can trust in the kind of God. This verse also speaks about God bringing people together and that is a whole different conversation. Learning to trust God requires that we know God so we have to develop an idea of who God is. Look around and see that God is building and restoring things and once we see that our faith will grow also. I want us to see that God is worthy of the trust He asks of us and in doing so we will be changed by the God who loves us.